LGBT

Utah House and Senate leaders will likely unveil a bill on Tuesday that provides protections for lesbian gay, bisexual and transgender people in employment and housing, while also protecting religious liberty.

A number of local faith leaders joined Equality Utah in prayer and song Wednesday at the state capitol and to speak against a statewide proposal they say would codify discrimination against LGBT people.

Utah lawmakers are hashing out a plan to enact state-wide protections for LGBT people in employment and housing, while protecting religious liberty. The two ideas may be combined into one piece of legislation.

A co-founder of the group Mormons Building Bridges doesn’t think the World Congress of Families should be welcome in Utah. But the group is moving ahead with plans to hold its meeting in Salt Lake City next October.

The Utah Supreme Court lifted a stay on adoptions by same sex couples Thursday. That changes the possibilities for many families, but one Salt Lake City man told KUER that it doesn’t erase the debt his family has incurred in order to adopt.

As same sex marriage once again became legal in Utah yesterday (Monday), state officials and gay couples prepared to accept a new and now permanent change in the law.

When Utahns woke up to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision Monday, not to hear marriage appeals from five states, the plaintiffs who challenged Utah’s law were still processing the fact that same-sex was now legal. Kate Call expressed relief that her marriage to her wife Karen Archer probably won’t be legally challenged again.

Same-sex marriage is once again legal in the state of Utah. The U.S. Supreme Court announced Monday morning it would decline to hear same-sex marriage appeals in five states.

The high court’s refusal to review any of the nation’s gay marriage cases means same-sex couples are free to marry in 11 more states, including Utah. Derek Kitchen is a plaintiff in the case that struck down Utah’s ban. He says families in the 10th circuit, and other states across the country where same-sex marriage bans have fallen, can now plan their lives like every other person in the country.

U.S. Supreme Court Justices will be talking about Utah Monday as it examines a handful of same-sex marriage cases from across the country. But whether the nation’s high court will take up Utah’s case is still unclear.

U.S. District Court Judge Robert Shelby struck down Utah’s gay marriage ban in December 2013, making the state’s ban the first to be challenged by a federal judge. In June of this year, the 10th Circuit Court in Denver concurred with Shelby’s decision. Utah and four other states have since asked the Supreme Court to settle these cases once and for all.

The U.S. Supreme Court announced this week that justices will review same sex marriage cases from five states including Utah at a private conference later this month. It is the first step the court will take in deciding whether or not to consider any of the cases in its upcoming session.

Groups who oppose gay marriage hand delivered more than 18,000 petition signatures to Utah Governor Gary Herbert’s office Friday. The aim of the petition is to thank the Governor and Attorney General Sean Reyes for defending Utah’s law banning same-sex marriage.

Former Utah Republican Governor Jon Huntsman restated his support for gay marriage this week, calling it inevitable. And even Republican Utah Senator Orrin Hatch has said, that eventually the law will recognize same sex marriage.

The Utah Attorney General’s office today has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on the state’s same-sex marriage battle. The decision comes after the 10th Circuit court of appeals in Denver ruled Utah’s ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional.

The U.S. Supreme Court has granted Utah a stay of a lower court’s ruling that would have required the state to recognize same-sex marriages performed during a period when they were legal.

With the Supreme Court’s stay, the more than one thousand same-sex couples who got married in December and January will continue waiting to see if they’ll be able to receive the same benefits as other married couples.

The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals will not stay a ruling from U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball that ordered the state of Utah to recognize the marriages of more than 1300 gay couples. Last month, Judge Kimball ruled that Utah must provide benefits to those couples who were married during a seventeen day period when gay marriage was legal in the state. Utah’s Attorney General’s appealed the case to the 10th circuit asking that it stay the district court ruling.

About 50 people gathered at the Utah Governor’s mansion Wednesday morning to deliver thousands of signatures collected for a petition asking Governor Gary Herbert and Attorney General Sean Reyes to stop fighting same-sex marriage in court.

The World Congress of Families has selected Salt Lake City as the site for its annual meeting next year. That concerns LGBT activist groups, who say the WCF is promoting an anti-gay agenda around the world.

It’s unclear how soon the Utah Attorney General’s office will appeal the 10th Circuit ruling that upholds same sex marriage in the state. But lawyers for the state have a strict deadline to decide whether they want the entire 10th Circuit court to review the case.

Utah Governor Gary Herbert said Wednesday that he is disappointed in the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals decision. It upholds a lower court ruling that struck down the state’s law banning same sex marriage.

Herbert says regardless of his personal views on same-sex marriage, he believes states have the right to determine the definition of marriage.

He says he fully expects the state will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Days of ’47 parade has once again turned down a request to allow the group Mormons Building Bridges to participate in the annual event on Pioneer Day.

Mormons Building Bridges, which works for inclusion of LGBT people within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, wanted to put a classic car in the parade with eight people representing their group. They were turned down because parade rules specifically bar entries that might be “controversial.”

Thousands of people lined the streets for Salt Lake City’s Pride Parade on Sunday. The grand marshals were the plaintiffs in Kitchen versus Herbert the court case that struck down Utah’s laws on same-sex marriage in December. The decision was stayed while it’s appealed to the 10th Circuit, but hundreds of couples who were married during the seventeen days the ruling was in effect were right up front in the parade.

A color guard made up of Boy Scouts and former Scouts will lead Salt Lake City’s Pride Parade for a second year. It will also include some Scout leaders who’ve lost their positions because of national Scouting policies.

Just over a year ago, the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America changed its policy to allow young gay men to participate in Scouting. But gay adult leaders are still excluded.